ENGLISH对话理解和优秀短文.doc

1. Read the following passage.Friends play different roles at different time in our lives. We all remember how important it was to have other children to play with when we were young. During the adolescent years, so filled with physical and emotional change, we have more time, more energy, and perhaps a greater need for friendship than we ever will again, as adults, busy with our own lives, we depend less on our friends for support. However, friends still play a critical role for most of us, sharing our happy moments and helping us through difficult times. There is a popular rhyme:” Make new friends, but keep the old; one is silver and the other gold.” Most of us try to make new friends wherever we goto a university, to a different job, to a new cityand we usually try to “keep the old” as well. However, maintaining friendship over time and distance is not easy. Americans tend to move around a great deal, and old friendship often suffer as a result.2. Answer the following questions according to the information in the passage. What different roles does friendship serve to fulfill in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood? Why is friendship especially important during adolescence? Explain the meaning of the rhyme “make new friends, but keep the old; one is silver and the other gold.”3. Discuss your own experiences with a partner. The passage says that Americans often lose touch with old friends. Is this also a problem in your culture, or for you as an individual? Do you have any sayings in your language about the importance of friendship? If so , share them with your class and teacher.4. presentation(in the form of pair work or group work)1) Prepare a short oral presentation (four to six minutes) about one of your best friends. Think about when and how you met your friend, why you became friends, and how you maintain your friendship. Write notes and practice speaking from them. Do not memorize your presentation. If possible, get a photo of your friend to show to the class.2) Make the presentation to your class. Try to make your classmates understand why this friend is special to you.useful phrases about friend and friendship:thick-and thin friend 同甘共苦的朋友faithful friend 忠实的朋友bosom friend 知心朋友intimate friend 密友inseparable friend 形影不离的朋友buddy 朋友friend of a friend 朋友的朋友strike up an acquaintance with/ a friendship 与某人结识、开始建立友谊easy to get along with 与某人容易相处get on good terms with 与某人友好相处cordial friendship 热诚的友谊ardent friendship 热情的友谊fast friendship 牢不可破的友谊lasting friendship 持久的友谊undying friendship 永恒的友谊drift out of touch with 与某人失去联系be on /keep friendly/ good terms / relations with 保持友好关系break off all the relations with 断绝所有关系seek common ground while reserving difference 求同存异Types of SpeechStandard usage includes those words and expressions understood, used, and accepted by a majority of the speakers of a language in any situation regardless of the level of formality. As such, these words and expressions are well defined and listed in standard dictionaries. Colloquialisms, on the other hand, are familiar words and idioms that are understood by almost all speakers of a language and used in informal speech or writing, but not considered appropriate for more formal situations. Almost all idiomatic expressions are colloquial language. Slang, however, refers to words and expressions understood by a large number of speakers but not accepted as good, formal usage by the majority. Colloquial expressions and even slang may be found in standard dictionaries but will be so identified. Both colloquial usage and slang are more common in speech than in writing. Colloquial speech often passes into standard speech. Some slang also passes into standard speech, but other slang expressions enjoy momentary popularity followed by obscurity. In some cases, the majority never accepts certain slang phrases but nevertheless retains them in their collective memories. Every generation seems to require its own set of words to describe familiar objects and events. It has been pointed out by a number of linguists that three cultural conditions are necessary for the creation of a large body of slang expressions. First, the introduction and acceptance of new objects and situations in the society; second, a diverse population with a large number of subgroups; third, association among the subgroups and the majority population. Finally, it is worth noting that the terms standard colloquial and slang exist only as abstract labels for scholars who study language. Only a tiny number of the speakers of any language will be aware that they are using colloquial or slang expressions. Most speakers of English will, during appropriate situations, select and use all three types of expressions.The Definition of “Price”Prices determine how resources are to be used. They are also the means by which products and services that are in limited supply are rationed among buyers. The price system of the United States is a complex network composed of the prices of all the products bought and sold in the economy as well as those of a myriad of services, including labor, professional, transportation, and public-utility services. The interrelationships of all these prices make up the “system” of prices. The price of any particular product or service is linked to a broad, complicated system of prices in which everything seems to depend more or less upon everything else. If one were to ask a group of randomly selected individuals to define “price”, many would reply that price is an amount of money paid by the buyer to the seller of a product or service or, in other words that price is the money values of a product or service as agreed upon in a market transaction. This definition is, of course, valid as far as it goes. For a complete understanding of a price in any particular transaction, much more than the amount of money involved must be known. Both the buyer and the seller should be familiar with not only the money amount, but with the amount and quality of the product or service to be exchanged, the time and place at which the exchange will take place and payment will be made, the form of money to be used, the credit terms and discounts that apply to the transaction, guarantees on the product or service, delivery terms, return privileges, and other factors. In other words, both buyer and seller should be fully aware of all the factors that comprise the total “package” being exchanged for the asked-for amount of money in order that they may evaluate a given price. Schooling and EducationIt is commonly believed in United States that school is where people go to get an education. Nevertheless, it has been said that today children interrupt their education to go to school. The distinction between schooling and education implied by this remark is important. Education is much more open-ended and all-inclusive than schooling. Education knows no bounds. It can take place anywhere, whether in the shower or in the job, whether in a kitchen or on a tractor. It includes both the formal learning that takes place in schools and the whole universe of informal learning. The agents of education can range from a revered grandparent to the people debating politics on the radio, from a child to a distinguished scientist. Whereas schooling has a certain predictability, education quite often produces surprises. A chance conversation with a stranger may lead a person to discover how little is known of other religions. People are engaged in education from infancy on. Education, then, is a very broad, inclusive term. It is a lifelong process, a process that starts long before the start of school, and one that should be an integral part of ones entire life. Schooling, on the other hand, is a specific, formalized process, whose general pattern varies little from one setting to the next. Throughout a country, children arrive at school at approximately the same time, take assigned seats, are taught by an adult, use similar textbooks, do homework, take exams, and so on. The slices of reality that are to be learned, whether they are the alphabet or an understanding of the working of government, have usually been limited by the boundaries of the subject being taught. For example, high school students know that there not likely to find out in their classes the truth about political problems in their communities or what the newest filmmakers are experimenting with. There are definite conditions surrounding the formalized process of schooling.Skyscrapers and EnvironmentIn the late 1960s, many people in North America turned their attention to environmental problems, and new steel-and-glass skyscrapers were widely criticized. Ecologists pointed out that a cluster of tall buildings in a city often overburdens public transportation and parking lot capacities. Skyscrapers are also lavish consumers, and wasters, of electric power. In one recent year, the addition of 17 million square feet of skyscraper office space in New York City raised the peak daily demand for electricity by 120, 000 kilowatts-enough to supply the entire city of Albany, New York, for a day. Glass-walled skyscrapers can be especially wasteful. The heat loss (or gain)through a wall of half-inch plate glass is more than ten times that through a typical masonry wall filled with insulation board. To lessen the strain on heating and air-conditioning equipment, builders of skyscrapers have begun to use double-glazed panels of glass, and reflective glasses coated with silver or gold mirror films that reduce glare as well as heat gain. However, mirror-walled skyscrapers raise the temperature of the surrounding air and affect neighboring buildings. Skyscrapers put a severe strain on a citys sanitation facilities, too. If fully occupied, the two World Trade Center towers in New York City would alone generate 2.25 million gallons of raw sewage each year-as much as a city the size of Stanford, Connecticut , which has a population of more than 109, 000.The Origin of SportsWhen did sport begin? If sport is much older than humankind, as we all have observed, the beasts play. Dogs and cats wrestle and play ball games. Fishes and birds dance. The apes have simple, pleasurable games. Frolicking infants, school children playing tag, and adult arm wrestlers are demonstrating strong, transgenerational and transspecies bonds wit